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LOS ANGELES — Many Americans took on more credit-card debt and failed to make timely payments in
the final quarter of 2013, when consumers typically crank up spending on holiday shopping.

Even so, the national late-payment rate remained close to its lowest level in six years,
credit-reporting agency TransUnion said yesterday.

The rate of credit-card payments at least 90 days overdue was 1.48 percent in the
October-December quarter. That’s up from 1.36 percent in the previous three-month period, but down
from 1.61 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, the firm said.

Average card debt per borrower rose 1.7 percent from the third quarter to $5,325. It slipped 1
percent from a year earlier.

An uptick in late payments and card balances is common in the fourth quarter, which coincides
with the holiday shopping season. Many consumers use cards to supplement their spending and often
put off making timely payments until the following year.

The latest card-delinquency rate remains below the average rate of about 2.2 percent going back
to 2007. The lowest rate on the firm’s books, 1.27 percent, was set in the second quarter last
year. The firm draws its figures from data culled from virtually every U.S. consumer who uses
credit.

TransUnion projects the credit card delinquency rate will increase to around 1.57 percent in the
January-March period.

Borrowing on credit cards plunged after the Great Recession as financial institutions tightened
lending standards and households became more cautious about taking on high-interest debt at a time
when millions of people were losing their jobs.

But during the past year, consumers have become more confident and have been willing to take on
debt. Most of those gains have come in the category that covers auto and student loans, but
credit-card borrowing also has been rising, if more slowly.

Credit-card debt climbed by $5 billion in December, the largest jump since May, according to the
Federal Reserve.

Regardless, credit-card debt is still 15.7 percent below its peak above $1 trillion, reached in
July 2008. Credit-card debt in December stood at $861.9 billion, up just 1.9 percent from a year
ago, according to the Fed.

Meanwhile, the number of credit-card accounts opened by consumers increased 11 percent to just
under 12 million in the third quarter from a year earlier. The data lag by a quarter, so the latest
TransUnion figures cover the July-September period.

While the numbers indicate lenders are signing up more borrowers to credit-card accounts, the
number of accounts trails levels seen before the financial crisis.

“There are still at least 40 million fewer credit-card accounts active in the marketplace than
what we observed just five years ago,” said Ezra Becker, vice president of research and consulting
at TransUnion’s financial-services business unit.